Advanced Courses

ESMO-ESO Courses on Medical Oncology for Medical Students

These annual five-day residential courses enable students to get a full picture of this challenging and interesting professional field before making the choice of their specialisation.

Preceptorship Courses

Apply now to join one of our Preceptorship courses!

Workshops & Courses

ESMO fosters the advancement of cancer research by supporting clinical trials workshops to inspire young oncologists from different disciplines across the globe to become the next generation of active researchers.

Patient Guides

Guides for Patients are designed to assist patients, their relatives and caregivers to better understand the nature of different types of cancer and evaluate the best available treatment choices

Personalised Medicine Explained

Video interviews and articles designed to help patients, policy makers and other non-medical professionals better understand the principles of personalised cancer medicine

Getting the Most out of Your Oncologist

Now available in Romanian, our Guide for Patients with Advanced Cancer is designed for patients, their family members and oncologists.

Designated Centres of Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care

The ESMO Designated Centres of Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care accreditation programme recognises cancer centres which provide comprehensive services in supportive and palliative care as part of their routine care.

EFPIA Disclosure Code

Policy News

Welcome to OncologyPRO, the home of ESMO’s educational and scientific resources, with Guidelines, a comprehensive list of E-Learning modules, Factsheets on biomarkers, slides and webcasts from our educational programme, and more... to support continuing medical education and daily practice!

A systematic review of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) in 10 obesity-related cancer types revealed that information on the eligibility and enrolment of obese participants in cancer RCTs is underreported. The authors led by Prof. Ludovic Trinquart of the Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA urged in the Annals of Oncology for more transparency to understand the applicability of obesity-related cancer RCT results to obese patients with cancer.

Obesity is a risk factor for numerous cancer types and may influence cancer treatment outcomes. Underrepresentation of obese patients in obesity-related cancer RCTs may affect the generalizability of results, the authors wrote in the study background.

The authors conducted a systematic review of RCTs in patients with oesophageal, colon/rectal, liver, gallbladder, pancreatic, postmenopausal breast, endometrial, ovarian, kidney, and thyroid cancers. In particular, they selected RCTs published between 2013 and 2016 in 5 major journals.

For each trial, the study team examined the article, the protocol, and the registration record. Furthermore, they assessed if eligibility criteria limiting the enrolment of obese participants were reported, the proportion of obese participants that were enrolled and if a subgroup analysis according to obesity status was reported. They systematically contacted corresponding authors and asked for information about eligibility of obese participants and the proportion of obese participants.

In total 76 RCTs were included in the analysis of colon/rectal, postmenopausal breast, and kidney cancers being the most frequently studied types.

Based on available public sources, information on the eligibility of obese participants was available in 7% of trials. The proportion of obese participants could be estimated in 12% of trials only. The investigators found a subgroup analysis in only one RCT.

In term of unpublished information, the eligibility of obese participants was explicitly stated in 41% of trials but it was unclear if the remaining 59% trials considered obese participants as eligible and what proportion of obese participants was included. Across 22 trials, the median proportion of obese participants included was 18%.